It was a cold and bleak frosty morning in early September 2012 when we boarded the MV Finlaggan on route from Kennacraig on West Loch Tarbert to Port Ellen. Kennacraig is located just south of the pretty fishing village of Tarbert on the Kintyre Peninsula. Two and a half hours later we disembarked at Port Ellen. With a hire car (Volvo 4 Wheel Drive) we headed to the White Hart Hotel situated right on the misty sea to drop off our bags. Known as the “hidden treasure” with a most rustic restaurant with a roaring open fire and a bar which boasted virtually every single malt release from each of Islay’s 8 distilleries. Right opposite the closed Port Ellen Distillery.
After an Islay prime beef pie and tomato sauce and tummy well lined for an afternoon of “single dram” tasting we jumped in the car and headed east out of Port Ellen hitting the doors of Laphroaig Distillery within seven and a half minutes and let the tastings begin.
We started with the regular 10 year old cask strength then the 18 year old and by this time Jock – our tasting guide – could see we were far from novice tasters and out came the 27 year old and blow me away the 40 year old. We bought 3 assorted year bottles.
I should mention at this time my tasting mate for this venture was Andrew Cripwell my un-biological brother –a Sydney Single Malt Tragic but more importantly by my better half Pamela – our driver.
Back in the car, 2kms later we enthusiastically reach our most loved Lagavulin Distillery, a fantastic structure of 3 storied white church like buildings. The Distiller of the 9.5 out of 10—16 year old. We were speechless as we entered the tasting room. We immediately asked to see the manager. If we were going to taste the equivalent of “Mothers Milk” why not meet its Laird. Seconds later we were greeted by the gorgeous Georgie Crawford who waltzed us through the 12 year old Cast strength, 21 year old and the 30 year old, leaving the 16 year old Distillers Edition to last. Georgie we loved and by the time we left I felt Georgie loved us.
We proved even after just the “2nd distillery visit’’, that of Lagavulin, that this wee dram is going to be hard to beat.
We bought 4 bottles of 16 year old.
Our next Distillery was literally just around the corner – Ardbeg the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy owned distillery; can I say more, perched right on the south coast of the Isle, let your imagination run wild and that would give you some idea what we were looking at. Dan was our man to guide us through the 10 year old, the Airigh Nam Beist, the Corryurechan 57.1%, the Supernova 60.1%, the Uigeadail 54.2% and the Rollercoaster 57.3%. Oh man, Dan knew his malts, described them to us to the enth degree. We fell out of the door and our driver – “Pamela” brought the Volvo right to the door – thank God. We bought 3 bottles.
The 10 km drive back to the White Hart Hotel was less noisier than our trip out. A 20km round trip that took 4 and a half hours.
A shower, a kip and a clean shirt saw us down at the Bar – what a Bar – what a barman. We had tasted the best that afternoon but Mikey the Barman, well known by all the distilleries, produced, would you believe – clean skin whisky rare treats. We didn’t know where or by whom these were produced and you know what!! – we didn’t care.
Dinner that night was very quiet. After 9 good hours of sleep we were up, showered and fed and at 8:30am back in the Volvo heading for the Bowmore Distillery 20kms north of Port Ellen. Established in 1779 by a John Simpson and now owned by the Japanese Company Suntory with an annual capacity of 2 million litres. It produces a large range 14 Single Malts which was a bit daunting so early in the morning. So we cherry picked the 15 year old, 25 year old and one called The Darkest – a lovely way to start the day. We bought 3 bottles.
Pamela drove us along the misty coast to Bridgend a small village just north of the bridge over the River Sorn – hence its name, then headed over land for another 15kms to Caol Ila.
The Caol Ila Distillery is located on the eastern seaboard of the Isle. A stark white complex (all distilleries are white in Islay). It was founded 100 years before I was born in 1846. Its capacity is 3.5million litres producing some of the most iodine flavoured drams made. Their single malts are in a small range 10 year old, 12 year old, 18 year old and 25 year old with a large volume used in blends for John Walker, especially their Black Bottle. We had small drams of each – loved them all. We bought various 3 bottles.
Just another 6 and a half kms up the coast brought us to what is probably the most beautiful, fairyland established distillery I’ve ever seen and it has its own beach with green hills in the background and blues skies to the east. Its manager, Tony could not do enough for us, we tasted the lot from 12 year old to 25 year old along with their Toiteach. An absolutely unbelievable attention to detail establishment evidenced during our tour of the whole works.
This fabulous distillery (both in its product and its historic infrastructure) is known as Bunnahabhain – pronounced Bun-A-Hav-In. We bought various 4 bottles.
We knew this 2nd day of distillery hopping would include 5 distilleries and we’ve just visited the first three in the morning—a bloody good effort. Now from Bunnahabhain, we needed to travel across country on unsealed roads all the way to almost the western seaboard to the newest distillery on the Isle – Kilchoman. Just to describe this trip, it was like travelling through Eyre Peninsula from Whyalla to Kimba – salt bush, goat and sheep country and amazing bird life, but no Kangaroos. A distance of approximately 40kms that felt like 400km – the roads could only be described as fair, real 4 wheeler drive terrain. – But, but, – the colour contrasts between the greys, blues and greens of the vegetation against the reds, oranges and yellows of the soils, it was a sight for sore eyes.
Kilchoman Distillery is not only the newest – established in 2005, the first built within the last 125 years on the Isle, but also the smallest, producing just 120,000 litres of alcohol annually. It grows its own barley on its own farm, using the old traditional floor malting procedure to make its whisky “Taking whisky making back to its Roots”.
Some of the original farm buildings used for the Distillery are said to be among the oldest on the Isle— limestone and local timber construction.
Kilchoman Distillery Farm produces and sells all farm products through its own shanty town shop – breads, cakes, sweets, smoked meats, black pudding etc and the locals bring in their arts and crafts etc to sell. Quite amazing.
We were fortunately lucky to meet with the leader of the team at this distillery – John MacLennon, if you take the Mac out of his name, it reads the Beatles Star and strangely he even looks a bit like him, but his voice lets him down, a real character who was so pleased to chat to us about this amazing enterprise. John’s been in the Whisky business for 26 years, 21 of those at the darling of distilleries—Bunnahabhain.
We had lunch here served on homemade tables and chairs with home-made lamb cottage pies and chutney.
We had to buy 3 bottles of their 5 year old its only saleable whisky at present.
Really, we did behaved ourselves today – no real excessive tasting, but there again we had one to go.
Bruichladdich Distillery about 10km away – as a crow flies, but by road 25km on unsealed and the last 5km, thankfully on bitumen. Pamela believes this driving experience has readied her to take on any outback car / 4 wheel drive trial anywhere back home.
Bruichladdich Distillery in the middle of no-where on the shores of Loch Indaal. Back to beauty – white walls, grey shingle roofs, spread over about 4 acres and established 133 years ago. Enter through the huge double gates – one read Bruich the other Laddich – you know the whiskey’s going to be good here, producing over 1,500,000 litres of the stuff.
We really got into tasting here and soon realised why Remy Cointreau purchased the distillery for 58 million pounds 3 months earlier.
Chief Marketing Manager Agnes McBride – a 35 year old lassie (say no more) showed us how to enjoy their “Water of Life” starting with the classic Scottish Barley, then the Islay Barley, the Organic and the Bere and then totally knocked our socks off with the heavy peaked Port Charlotte “Eorna nah-alba”.
And then – we actually did our own bottling here, out of a 50 gallon cask aptly described by this intriguing distillery as “The Forbidden Fruit”.
What a way to finish our tasting tour – WOW! We bought 5 bottles. Plus 4 “Forbidden Fruit” bottles.
The drive to Port Ellen, Andrew and I both missed – Thanks Pamela for getting us back to Port Ellen safely.
The End
Author: David Baker